The Real Tough Cookie with a Long History
by jemetc
Summary: Aubrey has been interrupted before while singing a 1980s chart-topper. But it was Chloe who ended up feeling ripped off.
1. Part One

**The Real Tough Cookie with a Long History**

Chloe is pissed. Chloe is pissed, a bit drunk, fighting an urge to get even more alcohol, and did anyone mention really, really pissed?

She's definitely, _definitely_ mentioned that to Aubrey, but Aubrey is unbelievably too drunk to absorb anything she's saying right now. In fact, Aubrey is _still_ too busy singing her beloved Ladies of the '80s hits to take note of anything else.

It's only pissing off Chloe all the more.

It started when she dragged the intoxicated blonde out of a frat house half an hour earlier, after seeing her getting hit on uninvited by one too many overly aggressive Sigma Beta douchebags. She should have known it would be a mistake to bring Aubrey to a boozefest right after finals, a horrid week with the Bellas, and another less than affectionate conversation with her father. But Chloe had been running out of ideas on how to distract the blonde—and herself—from, well, _things_.

A swig of beer and a few mixed drinks usually perk up Chloe enough for her to see silver linings again. Successful passes at eye candy—which Chloe was collecting before she had to collect Aubrey—also help. Apparently, the same amount of alcohol pumps up Aubrey enough for her to warrant a special membership in the High Notes. (For the love of everything aca, Chloe hopes word of this night will never, ever reach Alice—not to mention Mr. Posen.)

It was fine when Aubrey started warbling some tunes that sounded vaguely like her Dixie Chicks favorites. Chloe even hummed along, much to Aubrey's delight, and Chloe was only too glad to link her arm through the other girl's, steadying her as they strolled home.

But then Aubrey started singing what seemed like Cher and Cyndi Lauper.

And then Aubrey started singing _Alone_.

It's not that Chloe dislikes 80s music, or thinks _Alone _should never be sung anymore. It's just that she dragged Aubrey to that party to help her loosen up—not have the blonde let loose that thicket of emotions Chloe herself wanted to drink away.

"_Till now, I always got by on my o-own! I never really cared until I met you!" _Aubrey pulls Chloe's arm and tries to twirl her. _"How do I get you alo-o-one?"_

"How do I get you to shut up?" Chloe sighs as Aubrey launches into the chorus at the top of her high, clear voice. "God, Bree, why did you have to drink so much so fast?"

"_And I was gonna tell you tonight, but the secret is still my own!"_

Chloe doesn't deceive herself into believing that is an actual reply. She doesn't cringe, either, when Aubrey sings the next line just a little too shrilly.

At the door of their apartment, the singing touches her final nerve. Aubrey's gone back to Cyndi Lauper, cooing _Girls Just Want to Have Fun._

Chloe is so done.

"Bree, shut up," she says for the ninth time, fiddling with the lock.

"_The phone rings in the middle of the night. My father yells what you gonna do with your life—" _

"Bree. Shut up."

Aubrey's hand brushes hers as they both push open the door.

"_Oh, daddy dear you know you're still number one—"_

"BREE! SHUT! UP!"

At any other time, Chloe would have laughed at the utter shock on Aubrey's face. She should be glad, really, that Aubrey can even sing those lines so light-heartedly at all, but she knows she can only do it now because she's drunk. Aubrey is never going to sing this song sober, because standing up to her dad, singing in the streets, and having fun are things she's _never_ going to do sober. (Among other things Aubrey could probably do but won't—things Chloe could have but can't.)

Glaring at the blonde, she steps into the two-bedroom flat, tosses the keys onto the counter, then heads to the refrigerator to get water. Aubrey saunters in after her, closing the door.

"I'm sorry, Chloe," she drawls. "Are you… are you mad?"

"AM I MAD?" Chloe slams the fridge door shut. "Do I _sound _like I'm mad, Aubrey? Do I _look_ like it? "

She's really doing everything in her power to not slap this oblivious bitch right now.

Which, in fact, is the next thing Aubrey herself suggests that she do.

"Oh my God, _slap me_." The other girl's jaw drops both at her own order and a sudden realization. "Like. Oh my God. Chloe. You're angry at me."

"Gee-ee, you noticed."

"Is it because you were totally going to get laid but you came and got me instead?"

It comes out of nowhere, and it's the alcohol, totally the alcohol. She's not taunting her, Chloe knows. She never would, though it's hard not to think she isn't. Not when she's also giggling at what she's just said and somehow able to name who Chloe flirted with that evening.

"Were you going with Josh? Eric? Lisa? Or Brian? _Both_ of them? Oh my God, _Chloe!_"

Chloe is really losing it. She doesn't know why she ever wished Aubrey would be anything but sober, uptight, grumpy, and _quiet_.

"You didn't have to…" Aubrey then says, voice suddenly soft, eyes suddenly searching, and Chloe starts at the changing mood. "I mean, Chloe… I… I just… I don't… you're… " But whatever she is trying to say almost visibly dies in her brain, right behind that spot where her furrowed brows are now meeting.

And instead, to Chloe's infuriation, she starts singing. Again.

"Hit me with your best shot."

"What?"

"You're angry. I understand. I ruined everything. So, hit me."

"Aubrey!"

"_Put up your dukes, let's get down to it!"_

Aubrey starts dancing, a huge, goofy grin on her face, and she stares down Chloe head on, lost again in her delirium for the night. Chloe has always been privy to Aubrey's silly side, has teased her endlessly about it, but she can't fathom what brought on this extra dose of ridiculousness. Yet Aubrey is reveling in it, shaking mock-fists at the other girl, bumping her hip against hers.

"_Hit me with your best shot. Why don't you hit me with your best shot?"_

And that's when Chloe loses it. Because Aubrey _is_ right. She _is_ mad because she could have had the pick of the campus tonight, or any other night, and yet here she is, being poked fun at by a drunk, beautiful, broken heartbreaker of a girl, because _she_ is her choice and yet she has no chance of ever telling her that, much less a _shot_ at having her feel the same way.

"_Hit me with your best shot!"_

Not unless—

"_Fire awa—" _

In one swift motion, Chloe grabs the back of Aubrey's head and presses her mouth onto hers. She grips the taller girl's shoulder with her other hand before lacing her fingers into her hair.

Aubrey stiffens and no, she doesn't kiss or even touch her back, but she doesn't move away and Chloe cannot yet let her go. This is nothing she's ever wanted to let happen but she is also beyond tipsy and it is everything she's ever imagined. It is liberating, exhilarating, and terrifying and it could completely destroy their friendship and oh God, yes, _it shuts Aubrey up_ and with one last push before she pulls away, Chloe prays it will also silence all of her own yearning, doubt, curiosity, and hope.

When she takes a step back and dares to look up, she sees Aubrey with her eyes half-closed, lips half-open, and a hand caught halfway in the air, right by the space Chloe's face had been a moment earlier.

Aubrey begins to grin. Chloe feels like she might die.

"Oh," the blonde says, teeth on her lips—then giggles into song again. _"That's okay. I see how you do it."_

And before Chloe could set fire to Pat Benatar and every other female 80s star who she's pretty sure will be the only women to ever have Aubrey's affections, Aubrey stops giggling and grabs her stomach.

And because Chloe is Chloe, and Aubrey is Aubrey, Chloe runs after her to the bathroom. For the rest of the night, she holds back the blonde's hair, rubbing the spot between her shoulder blades and handing her tissues, until she finally helps her into bed at dawn. It's a most unromantic turn of events, but it's really how their evening probably would have ended, anyway. It's something she's done for her best friend before, and something she knows she may well do again and again.

Come the very-late-lunch-that-is-breakfast the following day, the blonde shows every sign of a wicked hangover and the typical Posen hard-headedness to fight through it. That afternoon and the days and months after, she doesn't show a sign of remembering the kiss, either.

Chloe, on the whole, is actually relieved. She admits it makes her heart break just a little more, but at least, what Aubrey doesn't remember won't kill their friendship.

Chloe knows _she_ won't forget it, though.

And, quite frankly, that makes her really, really, miserably pissed.


	2. Part Two

Just because Chloe never forgets that kiss doesn't mean she doesn't get over it, or try to. She dates Natalie the summer after sophomore year, then sees Tom on and off throughout junior year. (That's not even counting the casual things she has with a few other people, which Aubrey just gives her _this look_ about.)

She and Aubrey grow even more inseparable. By the time they're seniors, Chloe realizes that she would be mad to keep thinking that friendship is the next best thing she could have with her. In so many ways, it already is the best thing. Aubrey herself never stops telling her how she is the most important thing in _her_ life. So what if Chloe once wanted more than that and the memory can still sting?

Life makes you bite a lot of bullets, and it just so happens that this one ricocheted right back at her after Aubrey serenaded her into shooting it. She'll live. She doesn't consider _Titanium_ her latest jam just for _that_ other reason.

Chloe also considers it a sign of how far she's come that she doesn't flinch when, weeks after the ICCA debacle, Aubrey proclaims her mission of redemption by quoting a familiar song.

"It's like what Pat Benatar says," she states, eyes agleam and clutching Chloe's hand. _"Knock me down, it's all in vain. I'll get right back on my feet again._"

Chloe holds back a ready quip about how that sounds so much like other lyrics she holds close to heart. She only squeezes her best friend's hand. "And I'll help you right up, Bree. Always."

She doesn't flinch, either, when Aubrey surprisingly answers "You and me forever, right?" while looking at her like she's saying _I love you_. Chloe would say it back if she said it aloud. Just because it means differently now doesn't mean it's no longer true.

When Chloe discovers, by what seems like utter serendipity (or impropriety), that Beca Mitchell can sing _Titanium _so gloriously in harmony with her and also give the Bellas a shot at new life, she begins to think that she is finally, finally moving on. Beca is intriguing and irresistible, and Chloe's never outright crushed on anyone so badly since a certain blonde strode into her life years ago.

Yes, she feels an extra rush of nervousness at the Riff-Off, when Justin's Wheel of Fortune serves up Ladies of the 80s and Aubrey squeals into action. (It's also because she knows Aubrey's stress levels will ratchet to thrice her height if the Bellas lose in a category their captain is dead-drunk Dixie Chicks serious about.) Yes, she looks warily at Aubrey when the blonde gives them a heads-up in their huddle, and she doesn't quite grin in excitement like the others when Aubrey perfectly cuts off Barb. She holds herself back from the dancing, as well. When the High Note interrupts Aubrey, she holds her breath watching her best friend's reaction.

Then, suddenly, she feels Beca's hand on her back, and feels the cool intensity coming off the younger girl as the gears in her mind turn searching for any song that works. Of course, Beca picks and sings one—epically—and in the unexpected high Chloe finds herself in on the way home, she can't help but smile wryly at what the High Note sang out to silence Aubrey.

The next morning at rehearsals, she also smiles wryly at what they're singing for _I Saw the Sign_, until her throat begins to ache and Beca and Aubrey snap at each other again.

By the time semifinals roll around, Chloe has to admit a measure of feeling she had for Aubrey on that night years ago is resurfacing. That feeling, however, is plain out _pissed_—and it's doubled by the fact that she can't seem to convince her co-captain to listen to her about relaxing herself and her expectations, much less about easing off Beca.

By the time semifinals are over—by the time everything she's wanted her entire college life seems over—her fury is white hot and deadly. Chloe loses it, Aubrey loses it, and Chloe _really_ loses it because Aubrey still doesn't get it, doesn't get anything at all, doesn't understand that she's shooting down their last shot at everything the two of them have wanted.

(Well, maybe not _everything_, after all, because once she and Aubrey have wrestled each other to the ground, pulling each other's heads out of things that aren't hats, all the we-could-have-been-champions and that's-not-an-opinion-for-you-to-haves vanish. The moment they hug after the mash-up in the pool, they both _know_: compared to their friendship, an ICCA trophy is also just a next best thing.)

That also certainly seems the case when the ICCA trophy is already nestled in Chloe's right arm and Aubrey is hanging on her left, yet Beca is firmly wrapped in both of Jesse's, out in the seats. Watching the two freshmen grin at each other like idiots, with Beca not shrugging off an embrace for once, Chloe feels a twinge in her chest. It's not exactly heartbreak—what's there to be heartbroken about? It's not like she's loved Beca all these years to have her treat her like shit—but she supposes she could call it that. Now she just has to move on from the girl who she thought was going to help her move on. Between Aubrey and Beca and all the Bella-drama they stir, it's just another bullet Chloe has to bite.

Or, as it is often the case, drink down.

So, at the year-end aca-party at the amphitheater, Chloe finds herself downing several concoctions Lily offered in between sips of beer, all the while casting glances at the DJ booth where Beca and Donald are running the show. Fat Amy comes over and whispers that she could still make some special Australian brew, if Chloe promises not to get alcohol poisoning by the time she gets the shipment of secret ingredients. Chloe nods yes.

That's when Aubrey glides in from across the aisles, takes the cup right out of her hand, and orders Amy to take away the half-empty beer bottles within Chloe's reach.

"I think that's enough, Chlo," she says, wrapping an arm around the redhead and steering her off to a side exit. "We should go home."

"No fair!" Chloe whirls around to face her, but ends up reeling and crashing into the taller blonde's frame instead. "I'm trying to get smashed here, Bree!"

"Well, you already are."

"Don't you want to get smashed? It's _f-u-u-un_."

Aubrey laughs. "I did, once or twice. I had my reasons." Then, she pushes Chloe a bit off her, but holds the redhead's arms as she looks her seriously in the eye. "It was fun before your ninth cup and third bottle, Chlo. There's a difference between 'smashed' and 'dead.'"

Chloe catches a whiff of the novelty beer flavor on Aubrey' breath. The scent, mixed with her perfume, makes Chloe reel again. Aubrey clutches her, but at an angle that gives the redhead full view of the stage and DJ booth below—where Jesse has joined Beca.

"I think I really liked her," Chloe blurts out. "Like, _liked_ her."

Aubrey doesn't even glance behind her shoulder. She smirks and sighs at the same time. "I know." Then, she adds quietly, with a strange look on her face: "I think I hated her for that too."

Chloe stares back at that, but her gaze and her thoughts are too unfocused for her to read anything else in Aubrey's words or expression.

"I'm getting smashed," she repeats. "I'm getting smashed, and I'm going up to her, and I'm going to tell her that I like her and if she ever feels like Jesse's not the one then maybe I could be it. Him. Her."

"Oh, Chlo, that's not a good idea," Aubrey counters softly with a smile, tucking wild strands of the ginger's hair behind her ear. "Liquid courage never did anyone good."

"_Fast friends_. That's what I told her. 'I think we're going to be really fast friends.' Aubrey, I'm sick of just being friends. I swear she was flirting with me all this time and God, I'm going to her right now and—" She shrugs out of Aubrey's grasp.

"Chloe, _stop_. You can't just do that."

"Yes. I can. We sang in the shower, Bree, I just did it, we were meant to be. _Shoot me down, but I won't fall. I am Ti-ta-ni-ummm! Shoot me down, but I won't fall—"_

"Chloe, please don't _sing_—"

"I will! I'm _bulletproof, nothing to lose—" _

"—_Chloe_—"

"—I'll get her to sing with me and like me like I got her to join the Bellas—"

"How? By kissing her before she can sing 'fire away' too?"

There is a sharp intake of breath; neither of them knows who gasps first. Aubrey recoils, realizing what she just said. Chloe takes an unsteady step back, mouth open in shock.

Aubrey reaches out towards her, face flushed and voice suddenly wavering. "Chloe. Chloe, I'm sorry, I meant—"

But even if her head is spinning like a million universes and she feels like she's drowning in each of them, Chloe knows _exactly_ what Aubrey means. The weight of it hits her like a hailstorm.

"Of course I remember," Aubrey finally whispers, after few seconds, all these years. Direct, yet hesitant, her tone sounds like one of surrender. "I never forgot. I was just too terrified to ask you why you never asked me if I did. I didn't want—I didn't want to risk our friendship."

This time, Chloe can't say she's bulletproof.


End file.
